It was cold in upper New Mexico. The first camping site (Armijo Springs 34N05.33 108W 34.0), beautiful and free, was at 7,832′. Water froze as I poured it out of the bottle. But I had detoured to pick up a pie from Pie Town. A wonderful breakfast and dinner. The “town” was three or four tiny places selling pies. It was delicious. But the cold got me, and I headed to a lower altitude. There are many free camping sites going down NM 180 and Apache Creek was the hit. (33N40.46, 108W37.39 at 6,378′) Huge Ponderosa pines, lots of hiking places, and warmer weather. I stayed for 10 days and loved most of them. There was wind and rain, but mostly perfect weather. For most of the ten days I was all alone. No wifi. No cell phone. No other campers … except for something strange. Four times a different pickup truck would drop off a different man. The next morning a different vehicle would pick him up. Each site had the following identical trash left behind: 1 can of cold tea, 3 tin foil wrappers of burritos and an empty chips bag. I guessed that this was some kind of underground railroad spot. Got a tad nervous when, after picking up the trash left behind, I figured it out. So I moved on to another free spot down 180 towards Silver City.

I fell in love with Silver City. Not only do they have public restrooms, great local beer and free wifi in the historic district they have this business:

Now getting ready to go to the Gila Cliff dwellings. There will be no cell phone or wifi until I get back to Silver City. Just camping out!